Minimum number of replies

Minimum number of reviews

Minimum number of views

If you've been wanting to get your tentacles on the new Reef Octopus Light Reactor, here's your chance! 🐙
1 lucky winner will be selected on 9/5/19 to receive a Light Reactor in the size of their choice! 🌿
ENTER NOW: https://mailchi.mp/coralvue/reef-octopus-light-reactor-giveaway

Hi Folks,
I'm currently in the cycling process of my Red Sea Reefer 170. This is my third tank. I started this tank with BRS Dry Rock, and live sand from BRS.
I added a shrimp 3-4 days ago. It's beginning to disintegrate in my filter sock, still no ammonia readings. I added a small live rock and some chaeto yesterday. Before adding shrimp I began with Red Sea Mature Pro cycling kit however my readings using API & Salifert show to be 0 on everything Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite. This is after seven days...
77.3 *F
8.17 ph
34.2 salt
233 ORP
Visually, the tank looks clean. No signs of diatoms. Where the $#%* is my ammonia haha?!
Either this tank is cycling very efficiently and it's undetectable or Red Sea's Mature Pro cycling kit is pure snake oil.
Prove me wrong. What to do next...
Edit: I added the live sand and dry rock one week before beginning the cycling product from Red Sea.

My ammonia has been a 0.0 for the past two days, and this morning my nitrites were also 0.0. Of course nitrates were sky high so I did a 75% water change, and lowered it to 10-15. My pH is at 8.2.
Does it seem like my tank is done cycling?
If it is, this may be a stupid question ,but do I have a certain amount of time to add livestock before the nitrifying bacteria start to die off?

So I’m sure most of you that may reply already know my situation lol
I have a 32g biocube
25-26lbs LifeRock NOT LIVE rock lol
deepish sand bed- 1.5-2” (Caribsea aragonite reef sand)
using InTank media rack with floss, purigen, chemipure elite
InTank Fuge+ jbj nano glo light with Chaeto (not growing yet but new tank (1 month and Chaeto has been in just a week)
i have a couple snails and 2 x O. Clownfish
ammonia and nitrite are 0 consistently... I’ve been testing every morning just to be sure because it’s so new... PH is a steady 8.0 in the am
when tank was done cycling I did a fairly large water change (because I used BB I wanted to make sure the results were right and I was cycled and didn’t just have the bacteria still sitting in the tank water (Tank and sump part hold about 25-26g of water and I replaced 20g’s)
i am having issues trying to get my Nitrate down... and frankly even telling what it is!!
Right now I have no corals and don’t plant to for a while (months) as I am slowly adding fish first... but I figured it would be easier to try and get it as low as possible now before I get my full stock in there and then add corals....
so API is reading 20ppm (or slightly lower)
seachem multi test is a very clear 2-3ppm
red sea pro (this one knly goes to 4ppm and it’s at 4ppm- so probably higher)
i ordered fhe regular Red Sea and it comes tomorrow
why such a variety of numbers?? (They have all been consistent exactly the same for days and days now... I even have repeated the tests) I don’t believe it’s user error as I am not new to any of them except the Red Sea...
Now I have read 200 different answers like with corals it should be near undetectable... to 20ppm is fine....
very confusing lol.... now I know I am not over feeding at all... they eat get a couple NLS pellets or a couple pieces of mysis shrimp and NOTHING hits the bottom lol
and I give them a starvation day in there as well....
how the heck do you know what test is right and where your numbers are? I know there is no point in asking what test kit to use because everyone will say a different one... just wondering if I should try doing like 5 or 8g water changes every couple days and see if that helps? Or just wait it out? And see if anything starts to change?
no algae what so ever... like nothing anywhere....yet (I only added - couple snails and one poor guy already didn’t make it because of lack of algae (he wouldn’t stay off the glass and it was spotless lol but the others got a good feeding that way!)
but basically what shoukd/ can I do to lower them... as I said I know 20ppm (at worst) is ok for the fish right now and isn’t crazy but also would like to get and keep it lower (like maybe 5ppm) so I’m not fighting an uphill battle later....
i have space to add a bag of denitrate or similar right now and that was my only thought... get it down with that and then regular water changes should maybe keep it there? That was my only idea lol Or I don’t know if it’s better to just do once a week water changes and let the Chaeto try and use it up once it starts to grow (if it starts to grow lol)
any suggestions, ideas, or missing info you need I’m up for any opinions lol

Hello reefers, i have checked my no3 levels using salifert test kit, im but confused with reading , can you guys tell me what is the ppm of this reading and is it too high ? but my corals doing really good mostly i have zoas and i have couple of montiporas as well , this reading after yesterday 15% water change. im doing vodka dosing as well ,
my system.
2*2*12 cube
tmc vskim 300 skimmer,
carbon and phosphate media reactor
Build in Deep sand bed,
vodka dosing (0.1ml per day)

Hey guys, I tested my water today after doing a water change and I see my nitrate levels are at 180???
im so nervous because that’s obviously really deadly and I don’t want anything to happen to my fish or inverts!
some notable things I’ve done recently : I’ve been adding microbacteria in a bottle daily to establish my biological filtration, and my cycle is finally done. I did a water change with genuine seawater that I purchased from my lfs and some rodi water. And I added some new crabs the other day.
can anyone tell me if I’m doing something wrong? I do weekly water changes of 4-6 gallons in a 36 gallon tank.

Hello guys,
So late last night, as so many bad stories, I started my tank cycle. I want to do what I can to prevent fish or inverts from getting hurt so I opted for a fishless cycle with bio-spira and ammonia. I purchased Ace's janitor ammoni. No surfactants and did the bubble test, looks good. I was having trouble finding the conversion online for ML of ammonia to gallons of water. I found a conversion of 15ML for a 30 gallon. So I figured I'd start at a third of that 5ml, test levels and titrate to get up to 4ppm. Well right from the start I was off the charts. My gut told me to just start with 1ml of ammonia and titrate to get to 4ppm but of course I didn't listen and here I am.
So last night
Ammonia: of the charts >8 ppm
Nitrite: .25 ppm
this morning, about 10 hours later (attached img)
Ammonia: of the charts >8 ppm
Nitrite: ~1-2 ppm
Nitrate: 20 ppm
I'll check the 3 levels again in 12 hours. Prepping freshwater to make more salteater. I imagine I'll need to do a huge water change, maybe 50% or more to get ammonia down to a measurable level? It looks like the bacteria is doing their thing I just don't know if those numbers of ammonia will end up stalling cycle (read differing opinions) and even if not, concerned about the potential side effects of so much ammonia in tank.
Anyone been through this? I'm so annoyed, with myself. I've been pretty deliberate in my approach to this and usually err on the side of caution. But last night was stupid and I should've listen to that voice telling me what I should've done. But of course hindsight is 20/20 so I have to deal with the reality.
I have a Biocube 32, ~30lbs of reefcleaners dryrock, 20lbs of caribsea arg-alive, RO/DI water from my brand new filter and Instan-Ocean salt (non-reef). Since I'm just cycling I'm only running heater, pump, powerhead and lights (I know there's different schools of thoughts on lights vs no-lights during cycle - I was leaning towards lights on but with all this ammonia maybe I should got back to dark). Any other info useful? I feel like I'm missing something here.
Thanks so much in advance.

recently picked up a nice canister filter for cheap couldn't pass it up , Now my question is can I turn the back of my biocube into a large refugium taking out all the media just running rubble rock or mud and a lot of chato and other moss. Then running all my media in my canister filter? I know I need to stay up on changing and cleaning my canister out to make it not a nitrate magnate
it is a 32 gallon led biocube set up with coral and fish
thanks so much for your input

So, when cycling a tank, different bacterial populations convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate. In my planted tank, nitrate is then taken by the plants.
But, what about in saltwater tank? I read that there are some bacteria that convert nitrate back to nitrogen gas, which will be released to the atmosphere. How do we know that these bacteria had established themselves? And is there a bacteria-in-a-bottle type of thing that contains this type of bacteria? How long would it take to establish this bacterial colony on dry rock?

Hello everyone, I'm currently in day 5 of my cycle, these are my parameters so far:
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 40
Keep in mind the following: I have a nuvo 10 gallon tank, I bought 10 lbs of live rock, used 5-7 lbs of live sand, and I also used 70% of my water from my local fish stores show tank (owner was nice enough to give it to me) and 30% of new saltwater.
It is possible that my cycle has finished, however I did a 25% water change and my nitrates did not decrease. How can I make them go down to a reasonable level so I can start adding my first clownfish (live stock will be added slowly, but I want to have something in there to keep the tank healthy)
thanks everyone